Citation from The Statue of Liberty Encyclopedia by Barry Moreno (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000):
Bartholdi, (Frederic-) Auguste: "Sculptor of Liberty Enlightening the World, his most celebrated work. Born second son of Jean-Charles and Charlotte Bartholdi, he was christened at Saint Matthew's Church, in the Lutheran faith. Following his father's premature death in 1836, Auguste accompanied his mother, the Widow Bartholdi, to Paris. He was educated at the Lycee Louis-le-Grand in the 1840s and during holidays went to Alsace, where he was instructed in drawing by Martin Rossbach, a teacher at the College de Colmar. Bartholdi made sketches during holidays on the Normandy coast in 1847 and in London in 1851. In the late 1840s, he frequented the studio of Antoine Etex and studied painting under the Dutch artist Ary Scheffer. Scheffer advised him to become a sculptor, so Bartholdi began studying that art form under Jean Francois Soitoux. In addition, he took lessons in architecture from Eugene Viollet-le-Duc. From October 1855 to July 1856, Bartholdi traveled with the painters Leon Gerome, Narcisse Berchere, Leon Belly, and Edourd Imer to Egypt, Nubia, Arabia, and Ethiopia. LIke many other Frenchmen of his time, Bartholdi was deeply influenced by the archaeological discoveries of Napoleon Bonaparte's expedition in Egypt and Jean-Francois Champollion's decipherment of the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the Rosetta Stone. He was similarly inspired by the colossal monuments of the ancient Egyptians, particularly the pyramids at Gizeh, the Colossi of Memnon, and the Great Sphinx.
[NEW PARAGRAPH] Count Jean de Rapp was the subject of Bartholdi's first important sculpture, inaugurated on 31 August 1856 and presented at the Paris Salon of 1857. This very large statue established the young sculptor's artistic reputation. Several other works followed, including the Berber's Lyre (1857) and the Admiral Bruat fountain (1863) in Colmar. [NEW PARAGRAPH] In 1865, Bartholdi attended a dinner party given by Professor Edouard de Laboulaye and his circle of fellow liberal intellectuals and politicians; at this dinner, Laboulaye began formulating a plan to build a monument to celebrate American independence and liberty. Laboulaye commissioned Bartholdi to execute a bust of the scholar, which was completed in 1866. The next year, Bartholdi met the Egyptian khedive, Isma'il Pasha, in Paris, and developed his idea for a Suez lighthouse, Egypte apportant la lumiere a l'Asie. In 1869, Bartholdi went to Egypt for the opening of the Suez Canal by the khedive and Ferdinand de Lesseps, only to be disappointed when the khedive informed him that he would not commission the project. Back in France, Bartholdi joined the National Guard to fight in the disasterous Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, in which Alsace was ceded to Germany as a spoil of war. [NEW PARAGRAPH] Discharged with the rank of major in 1871, Bartholdi returned to Laboulaye's Statue of Liberty project. The scholar sent him to the United States to sound out American support for the idea; this proved successful. Bartholid also found a desirable site for the statue at Bedloe's Island in New York harbor and made maquettes of Liberty, the last of which was approved by Laboulaye in 1875. Following his return to Paris, Bartholdi was commissioned by the new French government to sculpt a statue of the marquis de Lafayette as a gift to the United States. Known as Lafayette Arriving in America, it was unveiled in New York with considerable fanfare in 1876. [NEW PARAGRAPH] Labolaye, with his friends and political allies, launched the Statue of Liberty fund-raising campaign with the creation of the Franco-American Union in 1875, the goal of which was to raise 400,000 francs ($250,000). Laboulaye arranged Bartholdi's second trip to the United States in 1876, to participate in the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition and exhibit the colossal arm andtorch of Liberty (which remained in the United States for fund-raising purposes until 1882); and to attend the unveiling of the Lafayette statue. Further, the sculptor married Jeanne-Emilie Baheux de Puysieux in Newport, Rhode Island. He unveiled the colossal head of Liberty at the Paris Universal Exposition in 1878. The fund-raising campaign for Liberty was completed in 1880, and work resumed on the statue at the foundry of Gaget, Gauthier and Company in the Rue de Chazelles, Paris. It was completed and formally presented to Levi Parsons Morton, the U.S. minister representing President Chester Arthur, on 4 July 1884. Viscount Ferdinand de Lesseps had by then succeeded the deceased Laboulaye as president of the Franco-American Union. Liberty was transported to the United States in 1885 and unveiled on Bedloe's Island in 1886. The Americans had agreed to build the statue's pedestal." (pages 33-35)
Colossus of Rhodes: "Monument dedicated to Helios, the Greek god of the sun, and erected in thanksgiving to him. Although the worship of the sun was almost universal throughout the ancient world, it became particularly popular on the Greek island of Rhodes, where the people adopted Helios as their patron deity. The devotion to the god reached its zenith in the fourth century B.C. when the giant bronze 'Colossus of the Sun," 110 feet high, bearing a torch of freedom, was constructed. This astonishing piece of religious sculpture was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world." (page 60)
Construction (France): Auguste Bartholdi's final clay model for the Statue of Liberty, the modele d'etude, was approved by Edouard de Laboulaye and his associates of the Franco-American Union in 1875 and ws unveiled at their opening fund-raising banquet held at the Hotel du Louvre in November 1875. Bartholdi and Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, who were responsible for the successful construction of the monument reached an agreement with Honore Monduit, principal of the respected Monduit and Bechet foundry, 25 Rue de Chazelles, Paris, to undertake the construction work. Viollet-le-Duc was responsible for choosing both copper as the medium and repousse as the method, as well as selecting the Monduit foundry (a firm that he had used for other projects since 1861). Laboulaye originally intended the monument to be given to the United States in time for that nation's centennial; however, the work required was too great to expect an early completion. Therefore, it was decided to build a portion of the giant goddess as an example of what was to follow. The arm and torch were constructed in time for display at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in August 1876. The second portion of the statue to be constructed, its head, was also fabricated at Monduit's (on this occasion, his younger partners, Gaget and Gauthier, probably played an equal role). The completed head, with nimbus spikes, was unveiled at the Paris Universal Exposition in 1878. Viollet-le-Duc made plans for the repousse copper body's internal structure in this way: 'In place of masonry there will be inferior coffers rising to about the level of the hips; these shall be filled with sand. Were an accident to happen, stonework would have to be dismantled; [but] with the coffers, simply open the flap valve affixed to the inner surface of each one and the sand will run out by itself.' However, he died before his plans were realized, and Bartholdi had to seek guidance elsewhere. [NEW PARAGRAPH] The brilliant engineer, Gustave Eiffel was chosen to succeed Violler-le-Duc. Eiffel designed an entirely new structural support system for the statue, one similar to the railroad bridges for which he was so famous. In about 1880, he designed a poweful iron tower or pylon. Rising 96 feet 11 inches high (29.54 meters), it is composed of four iron posts, which bear the statue's weight. From the pylon, there is a secondary body of trusswork and flat bars that the copper skin of sheets hang upon, and also a single projecting beam (the arm) extending vertically a full 40 feet, 7 inches (12.38 meters). While Eiffel was engaged in these activities, Bartholdi and his trusted assistant sculptor, Marie Simon, were not idle. They supervised work on the statue's body parts at Gaget and Gauthier's (Monduit had retired in 1878). Using the approved model d'etude (1.25 meters, about 4 feet tall, clay maquette) the foundry staff and artisans were prepared to begin their work. [NEW PARAGRAPH] In building a giant Liberty, three enlargements wre made from wood and plaster; then solid wood impressions were taken from them and laminated together. The first enlargement stood a bit over 9 feet (2.85 meters); the next four times higher, about 36 feet (10.97 meters). This structure was studied in every detail to avoid any mistake. Then, it was divided into many sections, and each of these was copied at four times their size. Each new enlargement (each section required 9,000 separate measurements) created could now be joined together through lamination to form the completed, colossal statue. The final enlargement stood 111 feet (33.9 meters) high (with the arm and torch added, it reached 151 feet, or 46 meters). [NEW PARAGRAPH] The next step was to prepare the copper for the repousse sculpting work. (The metal had been donated to the Franco-American Union by industrialist Pierre-Eugene Secretan.) Heated by a soft flame, the copper was ready for hammering into the wooden molds. In this repousse process, the copper grew thinner (3/32 of an inch, or 2.5 millimeters, in thickness). Thus the sculpture was shaped; its drapery, left arm, tablet, feet, and shackle. Now came mounting the sculptured copper onto the iron pylon that stood in the foundry yard, wher it had been erected in 1881; workers stood on a scaffold that surrounded it, and the metal pieces were screwed into Eiffel's pylon. The statue, completed by January 1884, became a popular tourist attraction. On 4 July 1884, it was formally presented to the American minister to France, L. P. Morton. Months later, it was disassembled, each piece meticulously coded, and then carefully packed in 214 numbered and labeled cases for shipment to the United States, aboard the Isere. The voyage lasted from 21 May until 17 June 1885." (pags 61-64)
Libertas: The Statue of Liberty is a modern allegorical representation of this goddess of ancient Rome. Libertas, the personification of liberty and personal freedom ordained by the Roman state, emerged from the Roman law of freedom (libertas) and was fully deified in the fourth century B.C. in an official state cult under the name Jupiter Libertas. Her original association with Jupiter, king of the gods, was due to the legal origin. Her worship was more common among individuals than within social groups: she was a personal goddess. Freed slaves were especially devoted to her. A famous votive offering to Libertas was a painting depicting the First Punis War battle in which slaves are shown securing their manumission; it was placed in a temple (aedes), built for her in 238 B.C. In the following century, the Roman statesman and reformer Tiberius Sempronius Grachus (168-133 B.C.) built an even more glorious temple to Libertas on the Aventine hill. This temple, probably of Greek design, would have been furnished with her idol, a sacrificial altar, lamps, basins for ceremonial washings, and benches. In the first century B.C., the orator Asinius Pollio placed a statuary idol of the goddess in the Roman Forum. There was also an Atrium Libertatis (atrium of Liberty) in a part of the Forum of Trajan that was known as the Ulpian Basilica." (page 142)
Repousse: Artistic technique of hammering or beating copper into a sculpture or decorative form. Auguste Bartholdi employed it in molding the Statue of Liberty at the suggestion of architect Eugene Viollet-le-Duc. The technique required hammerinf the copper sheets by hand, ensuring that the sculpture would exhibit relatively minute artistic detail. Furthermore, this technique made the statue solid yet light, promising endurance and longevity. Finally, hammering separate sheets of copper into distinct pieces of the statue guaranteed an easy way of packing and transporting the parts once they were ready for delivery to the United States. The repousse technique, in use since ancient times, is believed to have been the method the Greeks employed in constructing the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Viollet-le-Duc used this method to assist in restoring medieval buildings in mid-nineteenth century France." (pages 201-202)
Primary Source Documents:
"Bartholdi's Great Statue," The New York Times.
Bartholdis Great Statue.pdf
"Belittling a Big Thing," The New York Times.
Belittling a Big Thing.pdf
"Bartholdi's Statue Presented," The New York Times.
Bartholdis Statue Presented.pdf
"The Statue's Pedestal," The New York Times.
The Statues Pedestal.pdf
Secondary Source Documents:
"The Bartholdi Colossus," by William Howe Downes, The Bay State Monthly, October 1884.
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?root=%2Fmoa%2Fbays%2Fbays0002%2F&tif=00165.TIF&cite=&coll=moa&frames=1&view=50
Book: The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World, by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi (1885).
http://books.google.com/books?id=p02VNP45RdsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=statue+of+liberty&lr=&ei=tSUGSNmXI4zGyASPm42PAg#PPP7,M1
Excerpt from L'Art in Scribner's Monthly, (1879).
http://books.google.com/books?id=sYJ8G4dHLrcC&pg=PA631&dq=statue+of+liberty&Ir=#PPA630,M1
Newspaper: Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, week ending 13 June 1885.
http://mitchellarchives.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/statue-liberty-full-front.jpg
Excerpt from "The Universal Appeal of the Statue of Liberty" by Christian Blanchet Essay in The Statue of Liberty Revisited edited by Wilton S. Dillon & Neil G. Kotler (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994).
blanchet3233.jpg
blanchet3435.jpg
blanchet3637.jpg